In a few weeks Australian police will brave this night-time
wildlands, where their Papua New Guinean colleagues drive with a
cocked M-16 pointing out their Land Rover's window. They stop,
sporadically, to break up illegal roadside card games, but the
locals melt into the night. The law holds little sway here.

PNG police boast they have a shoot-first and shoot-to-kill
policy against car thieves. "They are just criminals," one said, as
we speed after a suspect vehicle. The impoverished settlement,
another product of the urban drift into PNG's capital, is home to
notorious raskol leaders and the favoured destination of the
carjackers who haunt Moresby.

It is a world away from the rapturous reception that greeted the
29 Australian police starting day patrols in the capital on
Thursday, swamped by crowds shouting "me hamamas" ("I'm happy" in
local tok pisin). "We are really happy, because there was
corruption all round in the PNG police force," says Simon Londari
at Gordons market, a hangout for petty thieves.

But even in the hot, harsh sunlight it is still "out of my
comfort zone", admits Senior Constable Glenn Keyte, a Victorian, as
he drives a shiny new Australian Hilux out of Gordons police
station for the first mobile patrol. His local companion, Constable
David Tololo, is enthusiastic about the Australians' arrival and
their new equipment. "It's boosted our morale," he says, "I think
it will make a big change."

Later that day the Australians got their first taste of law
enforcement, PNG-style. They arrived soon after the hard men of the
local mobile squad had chased a stolen car, and they found two
bloody, bullet-riddled bodies on the roadside. They were warned not
to touch them, because they could face a compensation claim from
relatives.

Australian commander Barry Turner talks of a partnership with
local police, of his officers learning from them, despite PNG's
force being found corrupt, criminal, violent, leaderless and in a
state of near collapse by an official review last month.

The Police Minister, Bire Kimisopa, already believes Australia
needs to double the five-year time-frame of the Enhanced
Co-operation Program (ECP). "This place is literally bought off by
vested interests," he says. Corruption goes to the top, brutality
is rampant and, without the program, the police and his nation will
be a lost cause, he says.

Although re-establishing order is pivotal to PNG's future, many
believe there are broader problems in a fractured nation of more
than 800 tribes that Australia's $1.1 billion program can hardly
begin to address.

Fear of the collapse of our nearest neighbour has driven the
radical step of placing 210 Australian police on some of the most
dangerous beats in the world, and putting more than 60 public
servants in key positions to crack down on corruption, improve the
legal system and invigorate a stagnant administration. PNG's
Foreign Minister, Sir Rabbie Namaliu, describes it as "the most
significant development in our bilateral relationship since PNG
achieved independence".

Professor Hugh White, head of the Australian National
University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, has just
completed a Government-funded review of the PNG relationship and
says it ranks, with Indonesia and China-US relations, as
Australia's most important foreign policy challenge.

"There is a long-term Australian interest in the security and
viability of PNG," he says, and its downwards trajectory is a cause
of serious concern.

PNG's Minister for Planning, Sir Moi Avei, agrees that
"Australia and PNG through history and geography are condemned to
share the same destiny".

This week a survey by The Economist rated Port Moresby
the worst of 130 world capitals on its hardship table, thanks to
poverty, crime, poor health care and a rampant gang culture. The
World Bank grants PNG its lowest ratings for "control of
corruption", "rule of law" and "government effectiveness".

In the first seven months of this year, Port Moresby, with a
population of around 300,000, was the scene of 85 murders. Fiji,
with a population nearly three times larger, had seven
killings.

The Australian officials examining PNG's books are uncovering a
horror story, according to one well-placed source. There is a near
total deterioration of administrative controls over a "pandemic" of
fraud. They have decided that "there is so much collusion, that
preventative controls won't work. What you need is detection after
the event," he said.

At a provincial government level, it is worse. A
PricewaterhouseCoopers review of the Southern Highlands province
found almost every cent of its $15million revenue had been
pilfered, leaving schools and hospitals crumbling. Similar stories
are being uncovered by Australian officials across the nation.

No-nonsense police like Assistant Commissioner Tony Wagambie,
the Port Moresby commander, understand the social drivers of the
crime explosion. "The problem here is unemployment," he said.
"People have to survive somehow - legally or illegally."

The program will provide the resources to put his, and
Australian, police back on the beat - a real deterrent, he
said.

Commander Turner is enthusiastically promoting a return to
community policing and a retreat from the violent tactics that have
pervaded the PNG force. In his own goodwill gesture, he shipped in
Christmas decorations and this week was on top of Moresby's
four-storey police headquarters, garnishing it with fairy lights,
and a statue of Santa and reindeer.

Mr Kimisopa believes the Australians will re-motivate the force.
The greatest fear here is not about criminals - it's the police. "I
firmly believe that the ECP people will see that this isn't a
jungle of crime any more," he said.